Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

winesmith

The ’06 Planet Pluto is a blend of 3 Cabs, a Cab Franc and a Merlot in a lovely Margaux style. It’s aged very well and developed considerable bottle bouquet and aromatic nuance. The tannins are still firm but pretty well resolved, so it’s ready to drink with steak, wild mushrooms or duck breast, and it just loves a nice old cheddar.

Even though I’m the director of the Best-of-Appellation awards panel for AppellationAmerica.com, and am a true believer in the centrality of regional character, I think appellation craziness is really bad for the industry. A lot of consumers who can’t tell good wine from bad want to spend their way into quality by buying big names and prestigious appellations. They’re not really buying wine, they’re buying insurance, paying 80 dollars for a 20 dollar wine. They end up with poor value, so the policy doesn’t actually pay off.

The problem in places like Napa and Burgundy is that the real estate prices are five or ten times what normal farm land costs.

I do a lot of winemaking consulting and work closely with a large number of growers from unfashionable areas who grow wines just as good as places that charge many times their price per ton. The best Lodi Cabernet costs about $1200 per ton, whereas the average Napa Cab is $5,000. Go over the county line from Napa into Solano County, and the price drops 80% in the space of a few feet.

I’ve been making wine for almost forty years, so I’ve developed a following of people who trust me to make European-style wines with good balance and structure. I wanna be your insurance policy. Hey, it’s free! I really like making affordable wines while at the same time giving business to these hard-working unsung grower heroes from obscure or under-appreciated regions.

sdfreedive

Questions:
1. Specs, Alc%, PH, TA.
2. Drink now? ageability?
3. Chemical additives? (This is not a bad thing, I'm more asking because you've been very upfront about how you believe a few tweaks can make a good wine a great wine. And I like learning)

ajrod27

Lots of dark fruit on the PNP with some menthol or eucalyptus, allspice, and a touch a vanilla. Blackberry, dark cherry, vanilla and some sweet earthiness on the palate with a nice amount of acidity and low to moderate tannin. Finish of blackberries and dark chocolate

After opening a bit, I'm getting some licorice on the nose. The nose is leveling out between the fruit and spice.

Overall a nice, balanced wine. Drinking well now but will hold up many more years.

MarkDaSpark

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

on referring to a website... and I might be blind or not reading right - but I do not find the wealth of information that w00turrrrs wantzzzz.
Is the website ready?
In fact after clicking all tabs and a few links - I find nothing about this specific wine? The "buy wine" link does not help that much either.
How many cases produced?

What is great about woot is that the information is all supposed to be right here usually ...

winesmith

Sure. The wine is 13.5% alcohol made in a classic Bordeaux style. Because of its firm but feminine tannins and the tobacco nuances like you see in Palmer, if I had to pick a commune in the Medoc, I'd say it's closest to a Margaux.

The TA is 4.9 gm/L and the pH is 3.79. These are high pH numbers by Davis standards, but when I worked with Pascal Ribereau-Gayon in the early '90s when he was the Director of the faculty of Oenology at the University of Bordeaux, he taught me a lot about how to make these wines properly. When you have big tannins like they do, acidity is your enemy for several reasons.

First of all, astringency is caused by the interaction of polyphenolics and salivary protein. We think of controlling it with, say, egg white or isinglass fining to remove the tannins, but he thought that a mistake, because you rob the wine of the structure it needs to integrate aromas and to age well.

Instead, Pascal believed that you need to keep the TAs low, because the amount of salivary protein which enters the mouth is exactly proportional to the titratable acidity. That's because your saliva is basic, and the more acid you have, the more of it is needed to neutralize the wine.

Therefore, he advocated ripe fruit, which in Bordeaux meant they often needed to use reverse osmosis to remove the rainwater from juice and get more time on the vine. For us, that's not a problem -- we use RO in a different way to remove excessive alcohol.

Anyway, lower TAs generally result in higher pHs, but up to a point, that's a good thing. In whites, we want our pHs low to maintain freshness. pH is sort of the gas pedal of ageing, with pH 3.2-3.4 corresponding to in-town driving, i.e 25-45 MPH, while he advocated for reds pH 3.7 - 3.85, which is like freeway driving at 55-75 MPH, if you get my drift.

If you try to age whites at high p[H, they oxidize rapidly. But that's because they have no tannin. Tannins take up oxygen and protect the wine, and they do this much faster and more dependably at high pH. Thus reds are prevented from oxidation by higher pH.

Now let's not get crazy. pH 4.0 is like driving 100 MPH, and that's too fast for careful work.

andreaserben

winesmith wrote:Now let's not get crazy. pH 4.0 is like driving 100 MPH, and that's too fast for careful work.

Not sure what's crazy about that. I find 100 MPH very normal on the proper Autobahn. It is the normal speed there for many.
Most US roads are so boringly straight that they would even support speeds of 150+ MPH easily (if you would get rid of stupid drivers and large trucks who try to take over other trucks).
But well, I guess for some 100 MPH is fast.

sdfreedive

winesmith wrote:Therefore, he advocated ripe fruit, which in Bordeaux meant they often needed to use reverse osmosis to remove the rainwater from juice and get more time on the vine. For us, that's not a problem -- we use RO in a different way to remove excessive alcohol.

Thanks for that. Did you do a RO to bleed off some of the alcohol on this wine?

And would you recommend airing this? decanter? Or is this softened enough to go from pnp?

michaelvella

winesmith wrote:Hi, Clark Smith here from WineSmith, with another crazy brand I make.

The ’06 Planet Pluto is a blend of 3 Cabs, a Cab Franc and a Merlot in a lovely Margaux style. It’s aged very well and developed considerable bottle bouquet and aromatic nuance. The tannins are still firm but pretty well resolved, so it’s ready to drink with steak, wild mushrooms or duck breast, and it just loves a nice old cheddar.

Even though I’m the director of the Best-of-Appellation awards panel for AppellationAmerica.com, and am a true believer in the centrality of regional character, I think appellation craziness is really bad for the industry. A lot of consumers who can’t tell good wine from bad want to spend their way into quality by buying big names and prestigious appellations. They’re not really buying wine, they’re buying insurance, paying 80 dollars for a 20 dollar wine. They end up with poor value, so the policy doesn’t actually pay off.

The problem in places like Napa and Burgundy is that the real estate prices are five or ten times what normal farm land costs.

I do a lot of winemaking consulting and work closely with a large number of growers from unfashionable areas who grow wines just as good as places that charge many times their price per ton. The best Lodi Cabernet costs about $1200 per ton, whereas the average Napa Cab is $5,000. Go over the county line from Napa into Solano County, and the price drops 80% in the space of a few feet.

I’ve been making wine for almost forty years, so I’ve developed a following of people who trust me to make European-style wines with good balance and structure. I wanna be your insurance policy. Hey, it’s free! I really like making affordable wines while at the same time giving business to these hard-working unsung grower heroes from obscure or under-appreciated regions.

Folks, this is probably one the of best comments ever posted on wine woot.
Read these words of wisdom, once, or maybe twice.
I gotta go to bed now, work comes early tomorrow, but can't wait to read more about this wine tomorrow.
Heck, I'm sure I'll be in for one..

The blend consists of fruit from our network of excellent growers from many regions in California, all of whom we have worked with for many years. Here we show how they function seamlessly as a team to produce a wine of remarkable character and affordability.

Cabernet Sauvignon
68% Peterson Lodi – A rich, round, dark base wine with fine tannins, Peterson is also 91% of our WineSmith Cab. A lot of people consider Jim's vineyard the best Cab in Lodi, and his son Marty has used lots of it in the Niebaum Coppola wines.
4% Tulucay Creek, Napa Valley, Coombsville vicinity – Our $100 Crucible Cab Sauv contributes immense structure even in this small quantity.
2% Gary Mangels, Suisun Valley – Gives seductive aromas of red currants and chocolate fudge and more of those elegant, feminine tannins.

winesmith

andreaserben wrote: on referring to a website... and I might be blind or not reading right - but I do not find the wealth of information that w00turrrrs wantzzzz.
Is the website ready?
In fact after clicking all tabs and a few links - I find nothing about this specific wine? The "buy wine" link does not help that much either.
How many cases produced?

What is great about woot is that the information is all supposed to be right here usually ...

I see your point, and I apologize. I decided in this wine to have a little more fun than I normally do. My WineSmith brand is pretty seriously geeky, and in this one I'm sort of experimenting with letting my inner child go nuts (albeit a geeky, astronomy-oriented inner child destined for MIT).

planetplutowine.com is definitely not a wooter-type site, unless some of you want to have some philosophical fun with me about whether Pluto is a planet or not, and more to the point, why we give such a rat's behind about appellations in the first place, to the extent that they drive up prices.

I'm basically a teacher, and all my wines have a message. We've talked a lot about structure, minerality, longevity and balance with some of my previous offerings. For the novice drinker, the take-home message of this wine is to trust you palate, your local retailer and your homies on the net more than the appearance of quality based on a tony AVA and a big price tag. For wooters, the message is simply - hey, you guys know me, and I never steer you wrong. I think I earned your trust with the WineSmith Faux Chablis Double Dare, and I haven't let you down since. There are definitely some winemakers out there worth trusting (Peter Wellington's offering yesterday is a good example), and that approach makes a lot more sense than overpaying for an appellation.

Anyhow, we made 199 cases of this stuff, drawing on larger lots destined for WineSmith Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, Crucible and Pennyfarthing Cab Sauv and Merlot. I wanted to see if a provocative concept and a memorable label could help me establish a high value brand that wasn't tied down to any specific appellation. This is the second vintage.

aequitas111

After reading some of these detailed posts, the yellow button got the best of me. In for one just because my heart is telling me this juice is incredibly interesting. I love the blend ratio to this meritage and I hope she doesn't do me wrong, in fact I'm pretty sure she wont. Thanks everyone for the quality posts here!

winesmith

3. Chemical additives? (This is not a bad thing, I'm more asking because you've been very upfront about how you believe a few tweaks can make a good wine a great wine. And I like learning)

As a general rule, I like to pick when fruit is fully ripe so I optimize my color and color extraction. To aid in this, I put an untoasted oak chip from the French forest of Alliers, air-cured 18 months, into the fermenter to assist color extraction. This chip is made by a company named Boise France from the 75% of good wood left over from the barrel making process, wood which was hewn away to make staves. It has no oak toast flavors such as vanilla, coffee or toasted almond. I never buy new barrels, because I think it's very wasteful to use a piece of fine oak furniture made from a 200-year-old tree to flavor a wine. Most of my barrels are at least 20 years old.

At the crusher, I generally add 45 ppm of sulfur dioxide in order to repress spoilage organisms and give my inoculated yeast strain a chance to get a footing. In a classic Bordeaux style, I am uneasy about uninoculated fermentations, which can add a lot of microbial aromatics which dominate over the grape varietal characters I am trying to balance.

Since I'm not picking based on numbers, I may, if necessary, correct pH to an initial 3.55 with tartaric acid from grapes. This pH will drift into the correct zone after skin contact, the effects of fermentation, and malolactic. For more on my philosophy of High pH Winemaking, check out http://www.vinovation.com/ArticleWinepH2.htm

Once I get extraction and dryness, I will keep the wine on the skins and bring in oxygen with a micro-diffuser at 40 to 80 times the rate a barrel supplies. The goal is to oxidatively polymerize the color and tannin into short, stable chains, the ideal structure for good aromatic integration and graceful longevity.

Ironically, oxygen at this stage is homeopathic. It actually increases the wine's anti-oxidative power and longevity, at the same time refining the structure. I use this technique in preference to fining with egg whites or isinglass, in my mind an obsolete procedure for winemakers who don’t know how to work with tannins.

Oxygenation is used the same way in chocolate making - converting harsh, nasty cocoa powder into voluptuous chocolate. You know that chocolate waterfall in Willy Wonka? They really have those. It's called "conching."

Finally, I often employ the reverse osmosis process I invented to lower the alcohol if it’s excessive. I never consider brix when determining proper ripeness, and simply rebalance the wine if it needs it. We did this on the Peterson Cabernet component, which was originally 14.8%, lowered to 13.2% and later rebalanced to a “sweet spot.” This wine was mostly bottled as WineSmith 206 Cab Sauv and was finished at 13.7% by re-addition of its own high proof alcohol.

This wine is in great shape at seven years' age, with plenty of time to go (at least five, probably ten years of life remaining, or more in a good cellar), but it's drinking extremely well right now, in middle age bringing together the cedar and tobacco nuances of bottle bouquet with the firmness and fresh fruit flavors of youth.

winesmith

andreaserben wrote:Not sure what's crazy about that. I find 100 MPH very normal on the proper Autobahn. It is the normal speed there for many.
Most US roads are so boringly straight that they would even support speeds of 150+ MPH easily (if you would get rid of stupid drivers and large trucks who try to take over other trucks).
But well, I guess for some 100 MPH is fast.

Sure, I gotcha. Thanks for playing with the analogy. Davis profs think my teaching about "high pH winemaking" is a little irresponsible. But lots of winemakers hang the Jesus out of their Cabs and make wines at pH 4.3, which is more like 160 MPH.

Who am I to question? These wines come out of the bottle at warp speed, but crash and burn in the cellar. Except when they age just fine.

A lifetime's not long enough!We're all just playing with our theories and observing what really happens, trying to learn, and meantime keep our customers satisfied. I just try to stick to my little Eurocentric niche, explain my reasoning, and try to avoid throwing rocks at other winemakers on a different path.

We winemakers are like musicians - it's vital that everybody makes their own kind of liquid music.

winesmith

sdfreedive wrote:Thanks for that. Did you do a RO to bleed off some of the alcohol on this wine?

And would you recommend airing this? decanter? Or is this softened enough to go from pnp?

Yes, one of the major components, the Peterson Cab, came in at 25.4 brix and resulted in 14.8% alcohol, so I used an RO to reduce the alcohol initially to 13.2% to promote microbial equilibrium, then added back some of the hig proof just before bottling to a "sweet spot" at 13.5%.

I don't find a decanter necessary at this stage. Also, a benefit of a good microoxygenated structure is that the wines don't generally throw lees. I think it drinks just fine right now without decanting, but will also hold for several days after opening, indicating that it has several years of life remaining.

I highly recommend a case purchase. By the time you figure out how good this is, it won't be available for this price, if at all. We didn't make very much (199 cases) and only 84 remain.

winesmith

ghyo1 wrote:Thanks, Winesmith for the great information. Could you also answer the question about ageability and if this wine needs to be drunk now? Thanks.

Not at all. I agree with Ajrod27 that this wine has plenty of additional ageing potential if you are set up for it. It is, however at a very nice place in its development in which it still has plenty of fresh fruit and tannic firmness but has also developed some nice bottle bouquet elements -- cedar, tobacco, parmessan. The result is a kind of fresh gaminess that's fabulous with veal or duck breast.

This is a lot of wine for this kind of money, and if you have a cellar, I recommend picking up two or three units in order to explore its development. You will chuckle every time you bring out a bottle for friends.

winesmith

I hope it says on my tombstone "He never let the UPC codes get the better of him." Ugly little things to have to put on a label.

On WineSmith back labels, I hide the stripes as part of a tiger. In Pennyfarthing, they're the whiskers of your father's mustache. In CheapSkate, they're the teeth in the Cheshire Cat's grin. In Planet Pluto, they're a solar collector on a satelite.

No events in your area??? Start one! Create an interest thread in the GATHERINGS Community Tab.

So join or create a WW Gathering!

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

winesmith

Despite the malarkey some scientists may be selling, Pluto IS a planet.

What words mean in common English is determined by usage. Pluto is a planet if enough of us say it is. Power to the people!

“Planet” is a very old term which means “wanderer,” thus any heavenly body which failed to conform to Aristotle’s theory which required precise orbit around the Earth every 24 hours.

Essentially, a planet is a heavenly body that deviates from theory. Pluto’s status as a planet is thus enhanced by its apparent deviation from current scientific theories of planetary formation (spun off from solar matter, etc.).

Pluto’s failure to “clear its area,” and instead to live in peace with its neighbors, was the criterion which modern scientists used to demote it to dwarf status. Similarly, the pesticides, herbicides and irrigation utilized on inflated value Appellation real estate leads to flatter wines which all taste the same.

Yes, Appellation is the enemy of terroir! The vineyards I work with in this blend were all respectful of nature, and show off their living soils in our “Dirty Pictures” gallery at http://www.planetplutowine.com

Planet Pluto Meritage boldly goes where no California wine has gone before. The blend consists of fruit from our network of excellent growers from many regions in California, all of whom I have worked with for many years. Here we show how they function seamlessly as a team to produce a wine of remarkable character and affordability.

Why the Scientists Are Wrong

Like many common English words, “planet” means something else in scientific English, a language few of us speak, which borrows words like “significant” and “energy” and gives them weird and silly new definitions. “Planet” is a very old term which means “wanderer,” thus any heavenly body which failed to conform to Aristotle’s theory which required precise orbit around the Earth every 24 hours. Like all other bodies in the solar system, Pluto qualifies as a planet.

The term “significant,” for example, does not mean important or noteworthy, but only that experimental data conforms to a rather silly statistical criterion, that if both the experiment data and the true population are assumed to be normally distributed – and we usually know for sure that they aren’t – that an apparent effect the data supports could only occur by chance 5% of the time.)

Nowadays, of course, thanks to science fiction depicted on movies and TV, the word has come to mean, for common English speakers, a spherical orb in space in orbit around a star, to which expectation Pluto entirely complies.

No events in your area??? Start one! Create an interest thread in the GATHERINGS Community Tab.

So join or create a WW Gathering!

I definitely want to get on your dance cards. We are working to find a good date for a barbecue at the old church I live in in downtown Santa Rosa.

In July, I'm taking Amtrak across the U.S. and would love to meet up with as many of you as possible. UC Press http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195 will have just released my book, Postmodern Winemaking, and I can bring wines to taste and my guitar to perform some pieces from my upcoming CD.

I'm in the Cleveland OH area July 14-17 and would love to stage a get together. Then I'm in Philadelphia on July 19th, Manhattan/Long Island on the 22nd, Boston on the 24th,and the last week of July in Nova Scotia.

Anybody that wants to support a book signing party, email me at clark@winemaking411.com.

North316

winesmith wrote: For the novice drinker, the take-home message of this wine is to trust you palate, your local retailer and your homies on the net more than the appearance of quality based on a tony AVA and a big price tag.

North316

sdbcmr wrote:Sure can't fault WineSmith on participation and willingness to share his enthusiasm about his art.

If not for the 90F + temps here and elsewhere (and the inevitable "don't worry" reassurances about hot weather shipping) - I'd be in already.

Seriously, again?

If you don't trust the shipping, don't buy, and don't bother posting about it.

The fact is, that no matter if "summer shipping" is in affect or not, WD plans shipping to minimize time in trucks, sitting over-night, sitting over weekends, etc. And if by some unlucky chance, something occurs with your shipment, customer service will issue a replacement/refund, no questions asked.

I really don't understand why you constantly gripe about this. Shipping is absolutely NOT A FACTOR here, no risk involved.

tdedek

Thanks for stopping by again Clark! Should be a great day to read over this thread. It probably won't take me long to hit the button, just waiting on some notes from the CA gathering this past weekend.

Looking forward to your upcoming book tour, I sent you an email regarding your stop in Manhattan/LI.

North316

sdbcmr wrote:... and I don't understand why you rant every time I comment on this, but have at it. I assume you take some joy in it.

My principal reason for posting this (as if I owed you an explanation!) was to compliment WineSmith on his participation.

I rant everytime you comment about the shipping, because there is absolutely no basis behind your comment/opinion/argument, whatever you choose to call it.

It leads people who are unaware of how the shipping actually occurs, to believe that you have been previously wronged by Woot and it's shipping policies, and may in fact cause woot to needlessly lose sales by scaring people with your "opinions". So I simply clarify your comments with truths.

If the point of your post was to praise Clark for his awesome participation, then do that and leave it be. No need to keep bringing up your unwavering disbelief in what has proven to be one the industry's best shipping practices for many years.

North316

winesmith wrote:I definitely want to get on your dance cards. We are working to find a good date for a barbecue at the old church I live in in downtown Santa Rosa.

In July, I'm taking Amtrak across the U.S. and would love to meet up with as many of you as possible. UC Press http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195 will have just released my book, Postmodern Winemaking, and I can bring wines to taste and my guitar to perform some pieces from my upcoming CD.

I'm in the Cleveland OH area July 14-17 and would love to stage a get together. Then I'm in Philadelphia on July 19th, Manhattan/Long Island on the 22nd, Boston on the 24th,and the last week of July in Nova Scotia.

Anybody that wants to support a book signing party, email me at clark@winemaking411.com.

We Ohioans have discussed a potential Cleveland area gathering for when you are in town and definitely like the idea. We'll try and get a forum posting soon to see if there is enough interest/availability.

sdbcmr

North316 wrote:I rant everytime you comment about the shipping, because there is absolutely no basis behind your comment/opinion ... If the point of your post was to praise Clark for his awesome participation, then do that and leave it be ...

Oh, gosh.

I'm going to have to respectfully disregard your instructions on what I should and shouldn't post.

I hope you'll understand. And if not, maybe you'll find the wherewithal to ignore my posts. They probably aren't good for your health.

Personally, I do not find the shipping processes and policies to be sufficiently transparent. I think I'm entitled to that opinion - and here's the part that apparently starts you spraying spittle on your screen - **even though that opinion differs from yours.**

This Meritage offer is a really fine one. If I'm the only person not ordering because of summer weather, so be it.

I'm fairly confident that Wooters are more than able to make their own choices about these matters. That is to say, I think the average Wooter is at *least* as bright as you are - but apparently much more able to disagree and make their own decisions without becoming apoplectic.

Let's agree to disagree.

Cheers, pal.

Now, to the point: I urge everyone to take a look at WineSmith's Planet Pluto site (he posted the link above).

The discussion of terroir is, all by itself, worth the effort. A very straightforward, plain-spoken essay.

true559

Had some of this last night. On the nose dark ripe cherries some oak. Med. to full bodied with cherries, red berries/fruit soft tannins slight tobacco on the palate. Med./long finish. Overall well balanced complex wine. Was guessing $20-$/22 bottle. Will buy and would recommend.

PS On shipping, I can say I've received shipments on 90+ degree days here in Cali. and the bottles are cool to the touch.

fogtower

I'm going to have to respectfully disregard your instructions on what I should and shouldn't post.

I hope you'll understand. And if not, maybe you'll find the wherewithal to ignore my posts. They probably aren't good for your health.

Personally, I do not find the shipping processes and policies to be sufficiently transparent. I think I'm entitled to that opinion - and here's the part that apparently starts you spraying spittle on your screen - **even though that opinion differs from yours.**

This Meritage offer is a really fine one. If I'm the only person not ordering because of summer weather, so be it.

I'm fairly confident that Wooters are more than able to make their own choices about these matters. That is to say, I think the average Wooter is at *least* as bright as you are - but apparently much more able to disagree and make their own decisions without becoming apoplectic.

Let's agree to disagree.

Cheers, pal.

Now, to the point: I urge everyone to take a look at WineSmith's Planet Pluto site (he posted the link above).

The discussion of terroir is, all by itself, worth the effort. A very straightforward, plain-spoken essay.

I thought Woot had a section to post about shipping and the like? Shipping is moot on Woot so I think the discussion ends there. They resolve any issue so why even mention it.

jmdavidson

I do not enjoy reading the volleying regarding shipping, since it is unfair to the winery. But, maybe WD can comment on when summer shipping will begin. It is June and it's starting to get hot in most parts of the country.

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